An aid group brought rescued migrants to Italy. Now they'll stand trial for doing so

The vessel belonging to Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms is seen at harbour at the port of Pozzallo, in the southern Italian island of Sicily. Photo / AP

This month, a ship patrolling the central Mediterranean on a search-and-rescue mission saved 117 migrants - including a 3-month-old baby in urgent need of medical attention - and brought them to Sicily.

For that act, the two leaders of the ship's crew are now facing up to five years in jail and potential fines of more than €1 million.

Today, Judge Nunzio Sarpietro ruled that Marc Reig Creus, the ship's captain, and Ana Isabel Montes Mier, the head of mission aboard the vessel, will stand trial on charges of aiding illegal immigration.

On top of jail time, aiding illegal immigration can be punishable with a fine up to €15,000 for each migrant illegally transported.

The rescue operation took place on March 15 in international waters, 117km north of Libya.

After the ship, operated by a Spanish NGO named Proactiva Open Arms, picked up the migrants, it was approached by a vessel from Libya's coast guard. The Libyans demanded that the rescuers hand the migrants over to them under the terms of agreement between Italy and Libya signed last year.

That deal tasked the Libyan coast guard with performing search-and-rescue operations and bringing migrants to detention centers in Libya rather than Italy. At the same time, the Italian Government introduced a "code of conduct" requiring NGOs to cooperate with Libyan authorities.

But, as both human rights groups and media outlets have documented, abuse of migrants is rife in Libya. Unable to pay exorbitant smuggling fees or swindled by traffickers, some are held as slaves, tortured or forced into prostitution.

Most NGOs have stopped their search-and-rescue missions in the central Mediterranean rather than return migrants to Libya or risk crippling penalties; Proactiva Open Arms was one of only two groups still rescuing migrants from the sea.

‘My crew saved 218 migrants from drowning – so why are we the enemy?’ https://t.co/udTKMPZD1g @openarms_fund

— Bertral (@bertral) March 25, 2018

And when the Libyan coast guard demanded custody of the rescued migrants March 15, the crew of the group's ship refused.

Instead, they headed toward Italy. On March 17, the ship docked in the Sicilian town of Pozzallo. The following day, local prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro accused Proactiva Open Arms of aiding illegal immigration and had their ship confiscated.

Yesterday, he ordered the crew's cellphones confiscated and also charged Reig and Montes with organised crime, according to local newspaper La Sicilia, which carries up to 15 years in prison. Sarpietro, the judge, rejected that charge.

Proactiva Open Arms maintains that the Italian Government's code of conduct is not legally binding. "There is no law that could force us to hand human beings to Libyan authorities in international waters, especially since we have reason to fear that they will be abused," said the group's spokesman, Riccardo Gatti. The prosecutor's office did not respond to requests for comment.